(Tales of Alohi) Tulsi + Fluoride = Cleaner Water

My sister Alohi reposted a blog from last year that deserves another look, entitled:

Tulsi + Fluoride = Cleaner Water: an article in reflection.

It's a look at an experiment with the tulsi plant, also called Holy Basil, and its effects on reducing the concentration of fluoride in fluoridated water. 

Comments below the main blog point out (from the website of the Centers for Disease Control) exactly what "fluoride" is, where it comes from, and the many health and medical-ethics problems its addition to municipal water sources brings (listed from applicable Material Safety Data Sheets).  The conclusion is pretty clear.  Someone is being paid very, very well to pour poison into your water and make you think it's good for you.

I have yet to see in-depth studies on what it does to the environment, but that might be an interesting project to kick off with a kid's science project for school.

National Pollinator Week kicks off - with a huge bee kill

Sun: 29' Gemini
Moon: 28'Scorpio
Waxing Gibbous - 3 days before Full

My sister Alohi, who runs the blog Tales of Alohi, tipped me off to this story on OregonLive earlier this morning:

25,000 bumblebees killed, dropping from trees in Wilsonville; pesticide suspected

 25,000 bees.  55 trees, known to have been sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides just days before as National Pollinator Week began.

The European Union has issued a continent-wide ban on the use of these "neonic" pesticides.  Why?  Because they have found sufficient evidence for concern that the extreme toxicity of these insecticides (to bees as well as to the insects they're intended to kill) is contributing significantly to Colony Collapse Disorder - observed worldwide among farmers and beekeepers for years now.  The evidence is strong enough that Vladimir Putin almost refused to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry because his outrage and fury over America's support for the companies that make them - including Monsanto, Bayer, and Syngenta.

If you like to eat, you may want to keep reading this one...

May's Supermoon (Tales of Alohi)

Sun: 03'Gemini
Moon: 27'Scorpio
Full Moon

My sister Fyre, who owns and maintains her own blog at Tales of Alohi, just put up a new post of some interest with regards to the May 2013 Full Moon.

Not only is it a Lunar Eclipse, but it is also a "supermoon," and as the Sun is in Gemini and a Full Moon is always a Sun-Moon opposition, the precise Full Moon is at 04'Sagittarius.  (Sabian symbol: An Old Owl Sits Alone On The Branch Of A Large Tree.)  Excellent time to set your ritual tools out for a night or two to bathe in the light of Luna, or to charge some climbing vine seeds for late planting.  (Vines?  I saw my tiny little lemon tree sapling - barely more than four leaves on it right now, still in its starter pot, double its height overnight last night!)

I've noticed a horde of fairly significant earthquakes within the last 24 hours all around the Pacific Ring of Fire.  The Tsunami Warning Center usually doesn't say a word for weeks at a time, but they've pinged my phone more than a dozen times in the last 24 hours for over half a dozen earthquakes, none smaller than a 5.0 - the largest so far being an 8.3 in the Sea of Okhotsk.

While unrelated to the eclipse/supermoon, it should also be worth noting that there has been also significant solar activity over the last several days, culminating in a CME event (coronal mass ejection). 

No wonder my dog has been so on edge and protective of me during the last twelve hours or so!

 - Starlight

Tales of Alohi

Just taking a moment to send a big hug and shout-out to my friend and Sister, Alohi Fyre, who maintains her blog on Witchcraft, Paganism, photography, environmental anthropology and a natural and holistic lifestyle over at Tales of Alohi.  She has been an amazing support and inspiration to me for better than ten years now, and she is my coming daughter's namesake.

Aloha, Alohi!